Shunya Muni: life sketch

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Found this online

http://www4.tpgi.com.au/users/void/shunya/shunya.htm

"For Ramana, kundalini is secondary. That which is the Witness of all,

is the one to be tackled. This was my intuitive

understanding when I first experienced kundalini: "I" had not changed.

"I" remained always as the witness of everything,

including spiritual experiences. The gyani's perception is that if

the ego is removed from the I, what remains is God. There is no

need for convoluted mental gymnastics to analyse this: it is an intuitive

awareness. This does not negate devotion: in fact

Ramana expressed intense devotion. It is like the moth flying into

the flame. "

Shunya Muni: life sketch

I approached the writing of this page with some trepidation. I

don't want to push a particular ideology, nor promote myself as

anything different from everyone else -- there are too many gurus

out there. I wish to direct you to the teachings of the saints

and toward an awareness of your own Self as guru. With this in

mind, read these notes about my life.

Also, please take care with how you undertstand my use of

the word "Self". This is the impersonal Source, the

awareness at your innermost depth, and is not the individual,

yet the individual is contained within It and is not at all

separate from It. Whatever word I choose to use -- God,

Self, Source, the Supreme -- you will have some mental

concept attached to that word, so none of these words are

really suitable. As I need to use some word, I chose

"Self", to indicate that you need to look within --

even though within and without are just mental concepts. So

think of the word as an indicator, or pointer, to that which

cannot be conceived of, yet can be approached by looking into

yourself.

As a boy growing up in a country town, the spiritual hunger

always lurked in the background, as a vague dissatisfaction, a

pain almost. I attended church, first Anglican, later Baptist,

but I was not satisfied with their narrow dogmatic doctrines. In

fact, I developed a "chip on the shoulder" later in

life toward Christians, and sometime ago I wrote a short essay on

religious fundamentalism, that is linked-to from the main page.

Now, I'm not bothered.

The story of my "yoga sadhana" goes back to 1973,

when I joined Paramahansa Yogananda's Self Realisation

Fellowship. I was incredibly naive, and on receiving instruction

in breathing technique via mail order, proceeded, and persisted,

to do it incorrectly and forcefully. Conscious forceful control

of the rhythm of breath leads to tension, and more tension.

Meditation is ruined, sleep will not come, the muscles tense.

Oh, the stupid things we do! I came out of that with a strong

belief that meditation technique, particularly involving breath

control, should never be via mail order lessons. Instruction must

be from a capable teacher, preferably a "Master".

I met some fantastic people while with SRF, and I still think

of them very fondly. It was right for them, but I was a misfit,

not belonging anywhere.

Paramahansa Yogananda visited the great sage Sri Ramana

Maharshi, in 1935. Yogananda asked:

"How is the spiritual uplift of the people to be

affected? What are the instructions to be given them?"

Ramana replied:

"They differ according to the temperaments of the

individuals and according to the spiritual ripeness of their

minds. They cannot be instructed en masse."

Right from those early days I knew about Ramana Maharshi. I

had read a book about him, but didn't understand it. Many, many

years later it hit me!

SRF was not for me, and I was desperate. I felt very strongly

that I needed the direct guidance of a spiritual master, and in

1981 I quit my job and went to India.

In India I restlessly travelled from place to place, and ended

up at the ashram of Swami Muktananda, not because I felt any

attraction to him, but because I was exhausted from travelling in

India and his ashram seemed like a nice place to rest ... however

the five weeks I stayed there while waiting for my flight was

anything but peaceful. I felt like I was being turned inside out.

I had profound experiences with Muktananda, but I don't want to

write about them. I will say though, that my concept of kundalini

underwent a dramatic change -- I recall being very embarrassed

about a constant sexual arousal, and I recall on the second day

lying down on my bunk, and feeling completely new sensations;

currents in my spine, plus more embarrassment.

What I did not understand then, is the intimate relationship

between the sexual urge and kundalini (when it is awoken in this

way, from the base of the spine). Years later, I learnt of

similar experiences from other people.

Jumping out of the chronological sequence for a moment. In the

mid-90's I met a spiritual teacher who claims that kundalini is

all imagination: I did him the justice of attending a one-day

seminar, to digest his point-of-view, however, he is the one who

is deluded. Kundalini happens without imposition of imagination!

This is something that I can vouch for.

There are many experiences associated with kundalini

awakening. One of these is the seeing of lights, and Muktananda's

"trademark" is a blue light know as the Blue Pearl.

This is a single tiny light that flashes outside, to the left or

centre of the field of vision. A certain kind of inner awakening

causes this light to spontaneously manifest. A further step is to

see this light inside. This is not a page on kundalini symptoms,

so I'll leave it at that.

Muktananda was the first real kundalini master that I had met,

and in fact 20 years later I still haven't found his equal.

Certainly I've met impressive people, and extremely unusual --

particularly in India! In 1986 I met a yogi who

demonstrated "samadhi" to me. His technique is

incredible: sitting naked, he wraps his penis around a stick,

pulls, at the same time doing a certain kind of breathing. He

then becomes still, real still. I felt his pulse both before and

during the meditation, and while he was in "samadhi" I

could not find a pulse. He is highly educated, an engineer, who

had found his Guru and left everything. In 1986 he was living in

Allahabad, Uttar Pradesh. This is kundalini awakening induced by

a (rather unorthodox) technique. Don't try it yourself; head my

warning about the need for guidance.

My understanding is that the root of the penis is close to the

base of the spine, and pressure at this point, combined with

pressure from expelling air with a small amount of force,

stimulates the base chakra.

My early Kundalini experiences faded quite quickly, due I

think, to my on-again off-again sadhana -- more off than on. What

has stayed with me though is the Blue Pearl.

Swami Muktananda left his body in 1982 and I lost interest in

the organisation that he had founded (SYDA), and various events

caused me to lose interest in the successor-gurus also. It's a

personal thing that I won't write about here, but the result was

that I was still a misfit.

I very much love the scriptural recitation (Guru Gita, Shiva

Mahimna Stotra) and the chanting at satsangs of Muktananda

devotees. This is a powerful path, and a part of my heart is

there, but my personal idiosyncratic wandering sadhana moved me

on. Though, I don't think the essence of the lineage has left me

-- I still regularly chant Om Namah Shivaya -- in fact, it is my

daily love-song to God.

I can't remember when it happened exactly -- sometime in the

mid-1990's -- I was standing in my backyard and suddenly the

secret of sadhana became clear. Suddenly I became very interested

in Ramana Maharshi, and several months after this

"revelation" I visited his ashram near Madras.

Unfortunately I missed Papaji, the last direct disciple of

Ramana, but I've attended satsangs with some of Papaji's

spiritual children.

I've met Gangaji, Isaac Shapiro, Vartman, Mira, but I haven't

felt a great bond with any of them. I don't really like the

currently popular styles of satsang, which involve a lot of

dialogue and interaction amongst personalities -- sometimes these

are not much more than psycho-analysis sessions, that seem to not

be getting out of mental/emotional levels, yet are probably

helpful to participants as pointers in the right direction. This

is in stark contrast to Muktananda's style of satsang, which

intensely fosters no-mind through meditation, swadhaya (melodic

scriptural recitation) and chanting. Though, I'm very impressed

with Gangaji's ability to talk about the unspeakable, the Truth

-- such words spoken by one who knows the Truth can penetrate,

and I have seen many participants deeply effected.

I have met Shantimayi, who is from a different lineage, but

still in the Advaita (non-dual) tradition. In late 1997/early

1998 I was in Rishikesh, and I regularly walked from my room at

the Omkarananda Guest House uphill to the upper bridge across the

Ganges River where her house is. She held daily satsang. She also

is someone special. I like the fact that her path backs up

Self-enquiry with solid methodology such as recitation of the

Gayatri mantra.

On that occasion at Rishikesh I also spent time with a

shaktipat guru of the Siddha Mahayoga lineage, Swami Govindananda

Maharaj, Rishikesh. They also seem sincere. An excellent overview

of kundalini, shaktipat gurus, and Siddha Mahayoga, has been

written by Kurt Keutzer. Look at the Spiritual links page.

During that visit to Rishikesh I attended satsangs at various

places near the Omkarananda Guest House. However mostly I was

restless, bored, and spent much of my time going for long walks

and waiting for the next meal. Somehow though, intuition

deepened, the Blue Pearl flashed frequently and intensely in

front of the eyes, and thoughts dropped into the mind of events

about to happen.

For example, as I walked to visit my sister who was staying at

a nearby ashram, I thought of someone pressing her feet. Somehow

a seemingly casual thought was a premonition of what I would see

on arrival. As I had never known anyone to press her feet before,

there was nothing in my memory to generate this thought.

On that same day, as I was walking back from visiting my

sister, I thought "the fuse has blown and there is no light

in my room". Indeed, when I arrived back, the guest house

was all lit up, but when I turned on the light in my room nothing

happened. Upon enquiry I learnt that there is a fuse for my room

that had indeed blown. These are just two instances of a steady

stream of intuition, of thoughts popping into the conscious mind

from a deeper source.

Not just in Rishikesh, but all over India and Australia, there

are so many others I have visited to "check them out".

There is Amritanandamayi Devi (Ammachi), who I felt is very

sincere. She is more oriented toward sadhana by service (karma

yoga) and devotion. Service or surrender leads to no-mind, which

is the goal.

The organisation founded by Muktananda was inherited by

Gurumayi and Nityananda (junior), but there was a parting of the

ways and Nityananda now has a separate organisation called Shanti

Mandir. I have met Nityananda a number of times and he seems

sincere. His main ashram is at Haridwar, India.

The greatest teacher of jnana (knowledge of the Truth)

(also spelt as gyana, which is phonetically more correct) in this

age is Sri Ramana Maharshi. From him we have the lineage of

Papaji (Poonjaji) and Gangaji. Somehow I got a

"connection" with Ramana. Somehow pure Compassion has

reached out to me through his eyes.

For Ramana, kundalini is secondary. That which is the Witness

of all, is the one to be tackled. This was my intuitive

understanding when I first experienced kundalini: "I"

had not changed. "I" remained always as the witness of

everything, including spiritual experiences. The gyani's

perception is that if the ego is removed from the I, what remains

is God. There is no need for convoluted mental gymnastics to

analyse this: it is an intuitive awareness. This does not negate

devotion: in fact Ramana expressed intense devotion. It is like

the moth flying into the flame.

What is the relationship between a sadhana based on kundalini

awakening and that based on pure Self enquiry? Ah, that is a

beautiful question, that occupied my mind for many years. Now I

think I have an answer, kind of, as described in my page Sadhana:

kundalini & jnana, linked from the main page.

This is an incredibly shortened autobiography, and since

late-1998 I have lived alone, a hermit, in an old house, 15Km

from town and 2Km from the nearest farmhouse.

Shunya's home.

Outer renunciation is not for everyone. I once knew someone,

by name of Robert, who was very enthusiastic about the spiritual

path. He wanted to be a very great devotee of God, and one day he

got on a bus heading out of the city, and got off at a bus stop

in the countryside, miles from anywhere. Shouldering his

backpack, he walked off into the forest, abandoning himself to

God. What a romantic concept. That night it rained, Robert got

drenched, and the next morning he was back at the bus stop.

"Sahaja" means "natural", in relation to

spiritual practice and experience, and this is how it should be.

My beautiful experiences of "connection" occur

spontaneously, like when I'm gardening or gazing casually at a

natural landscape. Effort and discipline should be there, but

spontaneous, many times during the day. I used to think it

strange that uplifting experiences didn't occur when I meditated:

only when I wasn't trying. Now I know: "It" is already

there, so so close, that by "trying" you take yourself

away from That. The One doing the trying is fully realised: you

will discover it to be the most sublime, most delicious paradox!

Love, Shunya Muni

Contact me

Personal viewpoints of Shunya Muni:

An essay on religious fundamentalism

The challenge: cults and their leaders

Return to main page

URL: http://www4.tpg.com.au/users/void/shunya

© copyright 1999/2000 Shunya Muni.

[Guest guest]

Delighted to know that you are still active and I trust, well. I have missed your

insights, wit, and poetic inspirations.

Wishing you continued grace and blessings...

Your Friend,

Zenbob

"Love and forgiveness are differing names for the same divine grace"